The present invention relates to monitoring and validating energy savings such as carbon offsets.
Saving energy is becoming more important to enterprises large and small. As an example, automated building control systems save energy by monitoring building occupancy in real-time, combining these data with inferred data derived from weather forecast or past occupancy trends, and factoring in other environmental information such as interior and exterior temperature and humidity, sun and solar data, and building models to adjust internal temperature, humidity, and light levels.
Another form of energy saving involves telecommuting and telework programs. Employees working from home or from satellite offices are not traveling to and occupying an office. Particularly, an employee working from home is avoiding travel-based energy expenditures from the system. An employee working from home is also reducing the energy required at his or her place of work to maintain environmental conditions at the office, support parking areas, and/or run ancillary services (such as janitorial, security, and food services).
Another developing aspect of these energy savings is emissions trading—known as “cap and trade”—an administrative approach to controlling pollution by providing economic incentives for reducing the emission of pollutants. A government authority sets a “cap” (limit) on the amount of a pollutant that can be emitted. Companies are issued emission permits to pollute and are required to hold an equivalent number of pollution “credits.” The total credits cannot exceed the cap. If a company needs to pollute more than the cap allows then it must buy credits from those who pollute less in a transfer known as a “trade.” Active trading programs exist for several pollutants. The largest trading market for greenhouse gases is the European Union Emission Trading Scheme. In the United States there is a national market to reduce acid rain, as well as regional markets for nitrogen oxides.
One of the issues with the present system is that credits are often purchased from countries in the developing world where promised emission reductions may actually never come to pass. A farmer in Brazil might promise to reduce methane gas emissions from a farm, submit the credit application to the United Nations for approval, and then sell the credits without any assurance that the promise will be fulfilled.
Enterprises engage in many activities that reduce carbon emissions and have the potential to generate trading credits. Previously mentioned telework programs under which employees work from home can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by removing commuter and mass transit vehicles going to and from work (the longer the distance travelled), lowering heating/ventilation/air conditioning/refrigeration/lighting/electricity (HVACRLC) expenses at the place of business, and lowering ancillary service costs (such as janitorial, security, and food services) at the place of work.
Another example pertains to the energy savings achieved by automated building control systems. Building energy consumption can be reduced in real-time by the use of automated systems that monitor building occupancy, enthalpy, sun position, temperature, and other factors and then act on them by adjusting temperature, humidity, and light levels to achieve energy savings.
These are but a few of many examples. In these cases, the primary objective of the programs is to reduce on-going operating expenses by lowering energy consumption. The associated reduction in greenhouse gases and other pollutants goes unmonitored and therefore unexploited by the cap and trade system.
What is needed is a way of monitoring and validating these energy savings, and a means of generating credits that is verifiable and which doesn't of necessity rely on purchasing credits from outside the region in which the purchaser conducts business.